Wife is cheating, am sad but confused?

[Atossup]

Good job. At least you see your W. I have not seen mine since last Thurs. I don't know when I will see her again?

Act as if is good.

[HopelessInLove]

Well this morning was tough.

I had to pick up my kids and take them to where they needed to go. Dropped off S first. Then had time with youngest D. She took out a pen and paper and was drawing. She was explaining the picture to me. She drew 5 clouds, and I told her that they were beautiful clouds. "They are of our family." She had me the largest and on top with my W's cloud under and the kids right beside. D said that she missed me at home and that W and I need to stop arguing. I told D it was not that simple.

Then I thought Yes it could be.

Any feedback on exposure of A? I tried once before when though EA was going on, which IMO sent it underground. If I were to expose, give ultimatum, and go dark (already started to detach anyhow) what might be response with W? Just looking for opinions. Not looking to do this if at all or any time soon.

[Savemymarr]

sorry HIL. that is tough. it is remarkable the insight which children have. she is a little angel. i say that about my 4 y/o too. hold on there amigo. u r strong and a good dad. live in the moment. i have said that many times as well. this past w/e when u were together with ur children, enjoying in their company and basking in their joy that is what u were doing. when u were in church as a family and ur W showed u affection, u were still a family. in that moment, u were one unit together gathered under God.

insofar as exposure? am for it. i do not advocate going all out as Willard Harley would suggest but most def think that A's flourish in secret and in the dark. ur job is to take the mystery and romance away. how detailed an exposure and to how many people u expose to is a judgement call. i KNOW my W still harbors resent (it was only one month ago) about how i did it. have tried telling her my reasoning that needed to take away the romance and mystery of it. offered her the following refs that i will post here.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/ubbt/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=2267126

http://www.symcinc.com/getinformed/articles/endingaffair.html

Truegritter stands on the other side of the camp and i would respectfully disagree with him on exposure. Then again, he has a diff type of experience and a diff fund of knowledge, and thus far his posts have been great with strong advice. there is more than one way of doing things, you know?

if it is true that ur OM is engaged then his fiance will be ur biggest ally. really. it sounds as if u need to gather data tho. the who of the OM, where does he live, does he go over to ur house and is exposed to ur kids, who is he friends with, is he engaged/soon to be married, how old is he, where does he work (funny enough was driving by store today which is same as where OM works in FL and we live in CT, W asks me if there is anything we need from there bc we are passing by and i answer i have no intention of ever shopping there again. period. she looked surprised and amused? go ahead and smile but that's it. i cannot even look at the logo of the place without being bothered).

would agree that if u could stomach returning, sep works both ways. on one hand, ur W still feels that attachment to u which is why she kissed u on the cheek in church. she is confused tho. she thinks that the answer lies in the arms of another. remember, do NOT believe anything she says. zero. going dark would be hard bc u have 3 kids. u can detach tho and GAL. make yourself into that guy who landed ur W and w/ whom she committed to and exchanged vows under God.

and last thought? D is NOT that simple. i know ur W would seem to think so maybe. but regardless u will be in her life and she in yours for as long as ur children live. they are young. u do have great affection for ur W. ur family would benefit from working on things. it would. i would say u should look at Retrouvaille but she CANNOT be involved in a third party relationship in order to attend. Retrouvaille could be sold as something of last resort.

check out their website: saveourmarriage.org or just google the word. check out lotus's post on Retrouvaille too. pretty awesome stuff but u have some work to do before u get there. all the best. will keep on checking things out.

[Truegritter]

On exposure.

I think it is important to let THEM know you know and that you are not ok with it.

After that. Just remember IF your M can be saved your spouse will have a lot of guilt (righfully so) and each person you tell will be another hill they have to climb on the way back.

So

Think about what you are doing. And why.

Especially why.

You are fresh in this tragedy and the tendency is to act on emotion and anger.

IMO that only bites you in the a$$.

Don't do anything that has anger behind it.

It is not your job to teach life lessons to your spouse.

You can waste a lot of precious time gathering intel, strategizing, and exposing.

Would you rather she come back to you because she is ashamed or guilty

or

Because she realizes that she wants her M?

This is not a game. You want to save your M the path is to save yourself first.

This site is called DIVORCE BUSTING not AFFAIR BUSTING.

So I say again think of what you are doing and why.

And I say get to gettin' there.

[Starsky309]

This site is called DIVORCE BUSTING not AFFAIR BUSTING.

But isn't the affair standing in the WAY of the marriage? I don't have the experience you guys all have, but that seems pretty common sense to me.

I'm lucky cuz my wife never had an affair (I don't think? I'm trying to learn more about them, so I can maybe see some warning signs), but if she did, I certainly wouldn't lie for her.

Starsky

M 38
W 37
S 8
D 7

[HopelessInLove]

I hear all of you.

I am such a basket case. W had a board meeting for their teacher's contract to approve last night. I had no idea it must have been thrown on agenda on the last minute. I have been going over almost every night to put the kids to bed or be with them. Tuesday nights I do not. Kids called me and spoke to them for a while. Oldest D said her grandmother was coming over to watch them. I thought, why. I spoke to W and she was abrasive and extremely upset. I asked if there was something she needed to tell me. She said she was very upset with me.

I had no idea what it was that she was having a problem with. After listening to last night's tape I heard W talking to GF and discussing how she contacted L. She was turned away. I contacted 2 L several weeks back because I feared her calling these 2 pitbulls for L. I will be seeing them next week for a consult.

I also heard W talking to OM. The way she was talking the OM was having thoughts of his fiance. I tract the fiance down and sent her a friendly email on FB to just drop my name. She responded and asked if XXXX was my W. I did not respond. Albeit she mentioned something to OM. On another note she was saying things to OM that suggest to me that they have not been physical???

I have been pretty detached from W for the last week. Other than the church thing and kids she has made no contact with me. How long has it taken for the detachment to see any type of results? How well does detachment work for A situations?

[Truegritter]

But isn't the affair standing in the WAY of the marriage?

Yes it does but your end game is to NOT get divorced.

If you can't bust your affair

then what?

Longer view is my point...not short term tactics.

[Grocerykartman]

HIL,

I'm on your side here. But because of that, I am going to poignantly ask you why you sent the OM's fiancee a friendly email. Why? If you want to detach, that is about the furthest thing from it. You are now involving other "innocent" people and making the situation uglier. That's not detaching, that's obsession! You are dignifying the OM's existence by doing this...and even more simply, you are not minding your own business.

See, right now, what is your motive for spying on your WAW? If you are not going to do anything with this evidence, then stop gathering it and truly detach. You only gather evidence if you need to prove to her you know that an A has gone on and you won't tolerate it anymore and want out, no joking whatosever. Which is not what this site is about. I have come to realize that you only spy if you want to catch your wife doing these things and then hold it against her while working towards a divorce. If you DON'T want a divorce, then you need to stop spying. All this is going to do is cause you to go crazy. You might not be there yet, but you will be at some point...everyone has their end of their rope.

You need to decide whether to either:

(1) Detach completely, knowing full well that there is going to be an OM involved for an indefinite period of time with your WAW. You do it under the premise that you deep down love her so much that you are willing to set her free for this unknown period of time, while you simultanteously improve you for YOU. She may notice your changes and she may not, but all you can really do is work on you and let her come back to you if she truly wants to. You have to be very patient and accept that some or many other activities may have gone on with OM during this time, some of which you will go to your grave not knowing about. Your love for her has to be ultimately stronger than any of that. Sounds like a very over-romantic thought, but that's what you have to do if you go this route, which is the DB way.

or...

(2) If you decide you want a divorce, then, spy your heart out and keep listening to these conversations. But all that will do is give you more reasons to dislike your wife and you will find out more things you really didn't want to know. That will likely cause you to harbor increasing resentment to the point where you can't overlook anything you've heard or seen. Furthermore, contact with an OM can come in waves...you spy and you find out that there has been little conversation between them for a while, so you get excited and think maybe it has cooled off between her and OM. THEN, a few days later, you're disappointed again when you find out they're back at it again, talking, flirting, worse, you get the idea. Then you are lible to get mad.

Now, I have said in a couple of previous posts when I was less wise that I am not against spying whatsoever. I now know than I am, and why it's a DB tactic not to do so. It only messes with your head. Spying is for detectives looking to gather evidence to CONVICT someone, not to bust a divorce with them. So, if you have decided you don't want to divorce bust, then keep spying.

Look, I know it's hard not to know what's going on with your wife. But the spying will just wear you down....it seems you are already a bit addicted to it. But you are really just wasting a lot of precious time you could be using to better yourself...you have to basically tell yourself...I don't care anymore what she's up to...I'm going to go do something that makes me happy. And as I said earlier, do not involve OM's fiancee in this. I know it's tempting, but you are just wasting more of your time getting other people involved too. That's not the way to detach, rather it only further increases the drama.

True gritter is right, work on yourself for the long term improvement of you. The ball is NOT in your court right now, it's in your wife's to come back to you. It may or may not happen, but that's your only opportunity to successfully DB.

[Starsky309]

HIL,

I'm on your side here. But because of that, I am going to poignantly ask you why you sent the OM's fiancee a friendly email. Why? If you want to detach, that is about the furthest thing from it. You are now involving other "innocent" people and making the situation uglier. That's not detaching, that's obsession! You are dignifying the OM's existence by doing this...and even more simply, you are not minding your own business.

See, right now, what is your motive for spying on your WAW? If you are not going to do anything with this evidence, then stop gathering it and truly detach. You only gather evidence if you need to prove to her you know that an A has gone on and you won't tolerate it anymore and want out, no joking whatosever. Which is not what this site is about. I have come to realize that you only spy if you want to catch your wife doing these things and then hold it against her while working towards a divorce. If you DON'T want a divorce, then you need to stop spying. All this is going to do is cause you to go crazy. You might not be there yet, but you will be at some point...everyone has their end of their rope.

You need to decide whether to either:

(1) Detach completely, knowing full well that there is going to be an OM involved for an indefinite period of time with your WAW. You do it under the premise that you deep down love her so much that you are willing to set her free for this unknown period of time, while you simultanteously improve you for YOU. She may notice your changes and she may not, but all you can really do is work on you and let her come back to you if she truly wants to. You have to be very patient and accept that some or many other activities may have gone on with OM during this time, some of which you will go to your grave not knowing about. Your love for her has to be ultimately stronger than any of that. Sounds like a very over-romantic thought, but that's what you have to do if you go this route, which is the DB way.

or...

(2) If you decide you want a divorce, then, spy your heart out and keep listening to these conversations. But all that will do is give you more reasons to dislike your wife and you will find out more things you really didn't want to know. That will likely cause you to harbor increasing resentment to the point where you can't overlook anything you've heard or seen. Furthermore, contact with an OM can come in waves...you spy and you find out that there has been little conversation between them for a while, so you get excited and think maybe it has cooled off between her and OM. THEN, a few days later, you're disappointed again when you find out they're back at it again, talking, flirting, worse, you get the idea. Then you are lible to get mad.

Now, I have said in a couple of previous posts when I was less wise that I am not against spying whatsoever. I now know than I am, and why it's a DB tactic not to do so. It only messes with your head. Spying is for detectives looking to gather evidence to CONVICT someone, not to bust a divorce with them. So, if you have decided you don't want to divorce bust, then keep spying.

Look, I know it's hard not to know what's going on with your wife. But the spying will just wear you down....it seems you are already a bit addicted to it. But you are really just wasting a lot of precious time you could be using to better yourself...you have to basically tell yourself...I don't care anymore what she's up to...I'm going to go do something that makes me happy. And as I said earlier, do not involve OM's fiancee in this. I know it's tempting, but you are just wasting more of your time getting other people involved too. That's not the way to detach, rather it only further increases the drama.

True gritter is right, work on yourself for the long term improvement of you. The ball is NOT in your court right now, it's in your wife's to come back to you. It may or may not happen, but that's your only opportunity to successfully DB.

Wow; that's an awful lot of assumptions. What research or books do you base all of this on?

I'm not an expert like some of you, and thankfully my wife isn't having an affair (I don't think). But to say "If you want to divorce, go ahead and spy, and if you want to save your marriage, then absolutely don't" seems awfully, well, ABSOLUTE to me.

I'd rather know the truth about what's going on, so I'd know what to do about it. Maybe that's just me.

Starsky

M 38
W 37
S 8
D 7

[TimeHeals]

But because of that, I am going to poignantly ask you why you sent the OM's fiancee a friendly email. Why?

I'm going to suggest that a good reason to do this is that it's the right thing to do.

I do not enable cheating. I do not condone cheating. I would tell too. I would feel good about doing that even though it would be easier to not do it.

Sometimes doing the right thing is a bit harder than doing the wrong thing.